Ponte Vecchio - Crowd, by Tom Stardust at Flickr - some rights reserved

According to Hornbill’s study report written by Mauricio Marrone (published September of 2009), the main barriers to ITIL adoption are (barrier with most responses at the top): 

1. Lack of resources ([people] time or people)
2. Cultural resistance to organizational change
3. Maintaining momentum/progress stagnates

These barriers depend on that fundamental little element on organizations: People. Whence, IT management and IT Governance must align execution and responsibility with envolved people to make sure producing relevant outcomes on time does happen.

From the same source, we known that for 70% of organizations under the survey, IT is represented on executive board. On the reverse side of the coin,  at 50% of the very same organizations, IT and business meet quarterly or less frequently, making it hard the forementioned alignment and envolvement.

And would the interviewed people for this study do differently had they another go for ITIL? Communication and education is key:

• Help business understand ITIL
• Get top management on board
• Educate key people as early as possible

[Bonus: Grab the report at Mauricio's page here.]

1. It’s not technology – it’s [IT] service management

2. It’s not the last word – it’s a reference, a good place to start

3. It does not teach how to do it - rather guides on what to do

4. It is not a tool – it is responsibilities, activities, results… it does need tools

5. It’s not instantaneous – it is gradual (for humans!)

6. It is not magic – just reusable common sense

7. It is not peaceful – it always goes with organizational change

Now you can receive instant updates of this blog via Twitter by following @itilblues.

After reading Seth Godin’s post on twitterfeed now I’m using it too – excellent service indeed.

The seven questions are:

1.Who RAISED the change?

2. What is the REASON for the change?

3. What RETURN is required from the change? 

4. What are the RISKS involved in the change? 

5. What RESOURCES are required to deliver the change? 

6. Who is RESPONSIBLE for the “build, test, and implement” portion of the change? 

7. What is the RELATIONSHIP between this change and other changes?

This way Change Management will have seven dedicated little helpers to recover from poison apples…

Thank you all for reading this blog.

I wish a 2008 with good surprises for you and close ones.

Bem hajam,

Rui

At last we have the option of taking the ITIL v3 Foundation exam through Prometric (only in English).

You can either book it online (Go to http://www.2test.com/, choose EXIN as exam provider and then EX0-101 ITIL Foundation v.3) or contact a local Authorized Prometric Training Center. It costs 140€ (when booked online).

This exam is also available on Pearson VUE.

I couldn’t confirm it but it looks like the ITIL v3 Bridging Foundation is available too.

You may find the free Overview of ITIL useful for reviewing (take care – it’s not enough for exam preparation…).

EXIN’s information on this here.

Utility and Warranty come handy when characterizing and checking the value of a IT Service as it progresses throughout its lifecycle.

Utility – Functionality offered by a Product or a Service to meet a particular need. Utility is often summarized as “what it does”.

Warranty - A promise or guarantee that a Product or a Service will meet its agreed requirements (“how it is done”).

These two concepts help in the definition of the Service Level Package (the closest concept to this with ITIL v2 would be the obscure Service Specification Sheets), a new ITIL v3 concept used in the Service Design phase in order to specify both Utility and Warranty for a particular Service Package being designed.

This in turn will feed the most important deliverable from Service Design: the Service Design Package, the IT Service’s blueprint during the next two phases (Service Transition and Service Operation), as the new or changed Service is developed, tested, transitioned into live environment, and then maintained day-by-day until it becomes obsolete.

The Customer will most certainly focus more on the Warranty aspects of a IT service after starting using it.

For example, if I go to a hairdresser to get a haircut (the Utility being the haircut service; it could also include shaving or hair dying) I’ll certainly will be expecting that:

1. It won’t take too long to get my hair cut
2. My head suffers no harm
3. I have a comfortable chair
4. and so on…

All these build up my perception of “how the service is being delivered” – the Warranty.

We may say that (depending on your local habits), the hair washing may serve an Utility purpose (extra functionality besides the haircut) that can have a positive impact in the Warranty of the haircut service (if properly done…).

Likewise, when using a IT Service, the Customer is quite influenced by how well the Service Provider performs regarding, for instance, the agreed Availability, Capacity, Security and Continuity service levels (the Warranty).

And that level of Warranty may just be the distinctive advantage one Service Provider has against the competition (which quite probably is able to provide the very same functionalities… the Utility of a IT Service).

Service Strategy introduces an interesting pair of complementar concepts: Resources and Capabilities.

Straight from the book we have:

Resource: A generic term that includes IT Infrastructure, people, money or anything else that might help to deliver an IT Service. Resources are considered to be Assets of an Organization.

Capability: The ability of an organization, person, Process, Application, Configuration Item or IT Service to carry out an Activity. Capabilities are intangible Assets of an Organization.

People are at the same time a Resource (in the sense that people are frequently instrumental in delivering an IT Service) and a Capability (people carry out Activities…).

The productive capacity of a service provider dependes on how Capabilities use (develop, deploy and coordinate) Resources. This added value can be seen as having a positive effect on… the resources and capabilities of the receiving Customer (thus, in turn, increasing his productive capacity to achieve business goals).

Maybe in a bit too simplistic way we can say that capabilites take time to build up whereas resources are relatively easy to acquire (a bit like when we buy goods – if we the money and the resource is available, then we can have it fast).

So, capabilities are generally harder to copy by competition (thus should constitute a positive difference) and help service providers gain advantage on the market space they’re going after.

People are then, from these definitions, the ultimate Asset on every organization. Why? Because they’re flexible, work well with uncertainty and can use all other types of resources and capabilities (more on that on the Appendix B from the Service Strategy ITIL v3 core book).

In a way not that far from what Blue Ocean Strategy advocates, an organization can be successful by creating a set of distinctive, hard-to-replicate capabilities that deliver a customer experience hard to replicate. The challenge is to get the right balance between resources and capabilities, by fulfiling a Customer need with a cost-effective set of connected capabilities and resources to satisfy those needs. An example from Blue Ocean: Cirque du Soleil does it by offering a new kind of show aimed at adults by having the capabilities to provide shows with a story, sophistication, blend of arts and at the same time being more effective on resources by letting go the expensive animals and attractions a traditional Circus offers).

Sources:

      Section 3.2.1 from Service Strategy for a good introduction, Appendix B, Section B.1 also from Service Strategy.

      Blue Ocean Strategy by  W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne

Robin pointed us out the excellent ITIL v3 summary An Introductory Overview of ITIL v3.

It’s more like the previous pocket guide for ITIL v2 and even if it’s not a crash course base material for ITIL v3 Foundation I do recommend it as a summary.

Don’t miss it as a good handy reference. I wish I could put my hands on a paper version of this…